[OneHotMess]

I really don’t know how I want to answer this. Especially, with my own issues.

Yes, it has helped in a lot of ways
- It helped to know that I wasn’t crazy.
- It helped to know that our 20 year relationship wasn’t crap like I heard during BD.
- It helped to explaIn to my son what had happened to his father after he overheard BD
- It helped me to not take it all personally which probably kept me from acting irrationally myself.
- and it helped me recognize my own MLC
 
It also hurt in many ways
- I focused entirely to much of my time on trying to learn how to help him when in the end there was nothing I could do but live my life.
- I seemed to excuse all of his craziness for along time
- I held onto the hope that he would come back
- It made me extremely soft in a very high conflict divorce with a terrible monster
- I analyzed his every move for awhile hoping to see a hint of his old self. I now know that I will see it when it happens and I’ve learned to enjoy those moments when they show themselves.

In the end, I am very happy to have found this site. I’m not sure I could have gotten through this mess without ending up in a mental hospital without it and all of you.

[Thunder]

Marvin, I agree with you.  There is no way any person can know, with any certainty, whether their spouse will come back.

So to say, live 'as if" to me just means, look at it as if they are not coming back, accept that as a real possibility, live your life that way, don't waste your time.  Don't let what they are doing distract you from having a full, happy life.  Let them go.

If they come back, great, if not then you haven't wasted years of your life waiting for them.

[marvin4242]

OffRoad and Marvin, you both seem to have questions and comments that would be better addressed to WhyUs than me because they concern his point of view.

Actually reading your post, although you quotes WhyUs, implies you are either in agreement or believe the same, so I am not sure why you say its not directed at you. I quote:

"This piece of advice has always bothered me. For the two words "as if." It still implies they WILL come back. It's like talking out of both sides of your mouth."

Its not talking out of both sides, it is acknowledging that we have no control and no ability to know the future. It is a version of "hope for the best and plan for the worst," there is no conflict in that. As I said before it is simply not oversimplifying a complex situation. In my opinion oversimplifications or rigidity usually doesn't serve us. Specially in such a complex and difficult situation as suffering the consequences of someone else's breakdown.

@Thunder stated it even better.

[Nas]

I think the key phrase in any version of that sentence is “Live your life.”
Live YOUR life. The way you want, not basing any choices or doing anything a certain way in the hopes it will make it easier for them to return.

[Nerissa]

Why are we supposed to trust the advice over our own instinct, wishes and common sense? Does following the advice cause more mental strain than just doing whatever we want and feels best?



You are missing the point here NYM.  Those who want to and are ready to follow their own  instinct do so.  They may never come here in the first place.  Posters here in general have circumstances and personalities which make this situation intolerable in some way.  It may be lack of resilience or emotional dependency - whatever.  We have lost faith in our judgement.  We feel utterly at a loss.  Some of us are alone or feel we overburden family and friends. Many of us hate experiencing a degree of breakdown.   We need distraction or support for our denial until we are strong enough to take stock of our situation.

Most advice here is pretty sound actually.  To say live as if they aren’t coming back is accurate since no one can actually know for sure the outcome.  We are encouraged gently to live for ourselves. There is unrealistic hope or some other distorted thinking in some posts - most of us have experienced this kind of thinking at some level.  Posters don’t pass an exam in logic or reality testing skills before being allowed to post.

My guess is that most of us choose the advice  that chimes  with our current mental state and go with it until we move to the next phase of grief resolution.  Or some may  reconcile.  In any case, I doubt anyone actively follows advice they don’t want to.  Whatever mental strain is occurring, it isn’t because we are unwilling following advice from HS members!     There’s no coercion here - just hands held out and advice offered that may register when hurt minds are ready to grasp it. Some of us may wallow in hope longer than we should and continue to use hope where we might be better off losing hope.  But we have to make our own decision about that.

[Whyus]

As you can see on another thread when WhyUs more or less put it as "Live you life because they AREN'T coming back" everyone was so offended.

I didnt say this... i said most dont come back and later refered to One or 2 LBS where the spouce are to 99,99% not Coming  back. There is a slight difference.

[Not Applicable]

I did say "more or less." 99.99% is a little less. 

I was just paraphrasing what I remembered because I didn't want to go back to that thread again. But thanks for the clarification.

The point I was making here is your advice, even if it was intended for one or two people, didn't qualify it with "as if."

[xyzcf]

There is absolutely no proof to Whyus's statement:

One or 2 LBS where the spouce are to 99,99% not Coming  back. There is a slight difference.

How many of you know personally of MLCers's who have returned? I know several.

How many purple icons are there on this forum alone? Certainly more than "one or 2"

Whyus refuses to believe that the crisis can end, that there can be a reconciliation. For some reason he feels it is necessary to repeat this FALSE information over and over...

I am not sure why he does this but it just isn't true that 99.99% don't come back.

We may never be able to accurately give valid stats. On this site, it is all anecdotal. We do know for sure that some MLCers return to their families. Understanding what a crisis is and how there is an end to the crisis is beneficial to continue to show our spouses agape and unconditional love.

[Not Applicable]

I don't want to get off on the tangent of the issue of the odds of reconciliation, and that is not what this post is about.

But I think we can safely say that reconciliation is the end result for a minority who continue to post.

I just wanted to stress the point I was making here by repeating these two points.

[Airmid]

Our Community / Discussion Re: Anyone else have a vanisher 22
« on: October 03, 2019, 03:15:03 PM »
Rollercoaster rider: "I do not believe that most MLCers will want to return once they are out of MLC."

I think it has been stated many times that Rollercoasterrider, and many people who post on HS share the opinion that reconciliation is rare.

So my thoughts on whether or not looking through the MLC lens hurts or hinders...

a)  If you are being blamed for everything that goes wrong in your marriage - and you view this through the MLC lens - then you get to realize this is projection - and most likely you are not to blame.

b)  If you are being gaslighted - and you see it in context with the MLC lens then you realize you are not losing your mind.

These are example of where understanding MLC - or "looking though the mid-life crisis lens" can help.

But if you don't turn your attention to yourself - and rebuilding yourself after BD so you are a healthy happy person, and instead focus 100% on where in the tunnel your MLCer is - then it is a hindrance.

If you sequester yourself in semi-isolation on the internet - living every moment reading on this or the many other MLC forums - and fail to

- earn enough to be financially viable (assuming you need income to survive)
- protect yourself physically if you have an abusive spouse
- protect yourself legally so your MLCer doesn't squander all the assets you and your kids need to survive
- live and grow as a person (instead sitting in your cave licking your wounds endlessly) ...

then perhaps the MLC lens is a hindrance to healing